05 November – 04 December 2012
ASC Window Gallery
Erlang House
128 Blackfriars Road
London
SE1 8EQ
TIPPING POINT
In response to current global economic, social and ecological instability, Tamsin Relly’s work explores the interrelationships between political and economic power structures, every day life and the exploitation of the planet.
In Tipping Point, Relly draws attention to the effects of contemporary Western lifestyle on the balance of the Earth’s ecosystem. Driven by profit or simply preoccupied by our own comforts, we all become complicit in extinction of species, acidified oceans and climate change. Specialists continue to warn that excessive environmental destruction is pushing the Earth toward a ‘tipping point’ that may cause sudden, profound and irreversible ecological shifts.[1]
Drawing from snapshots of day-to-day life and images found in the media, Relly works with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of paint, to present impressions of urban and natural environments in states of uncertainty or degeneration.
Deserted coastal resorts, sinking cruise liners and bleak industrial landscapes hint at the vulnerability and impermanence of materialism while images of natural disasters, tar sands and industrial mining explosions echo the increasingly urgent alarm of a planet on fire.
Arranged in a temporary installation, images can be read individually and in relation to the broader narrative.
[1] Barnosky, Anthony D. et al. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s Biosphere, Nature; Vol 486, 7 June 2012: Macmillan Publishers Limited.